Bed and Breakfast With a Side of Macaroni N Cheese to the Tune of Ludacris

Whew! What a weekend. There are many parts of the trip that we won't be able to explain in words, but I'll attempt to fill you in with a few details.

The goal: Travel to Ho, the capital of the Volta Region. Sleep in Ho, travel onward to Hohoe (ho-hoy) to hike the Wli waterfall and explore the monkey sanctuary.

Side note: This post is partially dedicated to our dear pal Ludacris. If not for his late 90s/early 2000s hit 'You's a Hoe' our minds would not be polluted as we ventured to Ho and Hohoe. This one's for you, Ludacris.

OK, back to our adventure. After a 7, 8, or 9 hour bus ride (after a certain point I stop counting) that was supposed to average 4 hours, we arrived in Ho. We found our way to a hotel and checked into a room large enough for the three of us (so our reception man said). We were starving and grabbed some fried rice at their restaurant (sooo much fried rice here). Then we were escorted to our room and found (to our surprise) one large, very large, bed with three pillows. Oh yea, it wasn't a hotel after all. It was a bed and breakfast. Oops. Now their view of Americans must be rrreeeallllyy convoluted. Sorry Americans!


So after tucking in tight and spreading as far apart from each other as possible (eww cooties!) we tried to fall asleep. Except there was one small problem: our room had air conditioning. This has become a luxury for us. Unbeknownst to me, both Matt and David were also lying awake shivering. This went on for an hour or so until Matt finally sat up and said "I'm freezing!" at which point David and I both sighed and agreed and we shut off the air. Ahhh...much better...90 degrees with a chance of 80% humidity. We can't wait to get back to Altanta - I might have to bust out the Uggs!

And well, since it turned out to be a bed and breakfast, we all enjoyed a nice (free) breakfast the next morning. They even cut the crust off our toast (but not by request). And I got sooo close to tasting coffee on my lips, but alas it was only instant and well, if you know anything about me, instant coffee just will not do. I'd rather starve.

Upon leaving our quaint lodging experience we arrived in the town Hohoe and traveled another few miles to the Wli falls. We grabbed another interesting accomodation (only a photo can describe this one) and set about on our hike. For the sake of your eyes and my typing fingers, I'll save the hike story for another day. At the end, after the mud, tears, and sweat, we were famished. Here's when we joined the rest of our crew - Bilal and Maryam and a new friend from Australia named Natalie - and dined at the restaurant at their lodge.

We spotted it instantly: Macaroni n Cheese. Insert oooohhhhs and aaahhhhs here. After a week of rice and bread (not that we don't love rice and bread) we couldn't resist the chance to chow down on some good ol Mac N Cheese.





Bring on the Velveeta!






Bring on the Kraft!






Oh no...it was much better than that. It was fresh. It was homemade. The chicken on the side of the road had probably been snapped and de-feathered as we waited. And the best part: the macaroni was baked. Utter perfection. Lightly crispy on top with just the hint of brown from the oven. Amazing. The end.

Our fabulous meal was followed by dessert, bedtime, and then another adventure to the Monkey Sanctuary and home. We'll just stick to the topics in the title for now and save the rest of these details for other posts.... but enjoy some photos as you wait in eager anticipation:

Some Things You May (or may not) Expect to See (or not see) in Ghana

Confused? Good. We are too. Here are some things we've seen (or not seen) in Ghana:

1. Celine Dion. Listening to the radio I heard, "Hello, this is Celine Dion, and you're listening to..." followed by some Ghanaian rap. Hmmmm....proper introduction?

2. Bob Marley's wife. This serves as a proper introduction to thing number 3.

3. Rastafarians. A lot of Rastafarian. I mean - I thought they were Jamaican, but apparently Bob Marley's One Love spread around. And with the Rastafarians comes thing number 4.

4. Weed. Lots of weed. Not that I didn't think Ghanaians smoked, but it is illegal and I thought at least like the US it'd be on the down low. Nope. Lots of Rastas = lots of weed (don't worry adult readers, we aren't partaking).

5. Traffic. You think ATL is bad? You think 400 is horrible? You dread rush hour on 85N? Ha. Come to Accra and you will be thankful for Atlanta's traffic! Example: We arrived at our tro-tro stop at 6:45am to be at the Hospital by 8. It's about 15 miles away. We couldn't get a car until 7:20 because they were all full. We didn't get to work until 8:45. Wow.

6. Pot holes. You may or may not have expected this. But they are here, and they are uge. We have seen many an overturned vehicle, probably due to swerving to avoid pot holes (or maybe a goat or chicken).

7. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. Saw these two on a billboard advertising internet. Because Winnie the Pooh and Tigger definitely indicate fast internet.

8. Bar-B-Que bat. And snails on kabobs. Hungry? Why Wait? Grab a snail!

9. A 'Vote for Pedro' t-shirt. That was awesome. Saw another one this morning: 'Phabulous.' Haha.

Stay tuned...next topic: Ghanaian vocabulary! I have to gather my thoughts before writing this one up...but it'll be a good one. :)

An Update on Our Research

We finally met Dr. Badoe (bay-due) yesterday after many month of emailing each other back and forth. Dr. Badoe is just as excited as we are about the research we will be doing this summer. There is a ton for us to do here and we are hoping that we’ll be able to get some quality research done in the next few weeks and also lay way for future groups to come in the future. We will be doing a prevalence and mortality study on down syndrome, spina bifida, preterm birth and anencephaly. Depending on how much time we have and how good of data we can find, we might also do a questionnaire/survey looking at different factors relating to birth defects. We will be meeting with Dr. Badoe today in hopes of moving down to Korle Bu, so we can be closer to the hospital.
Matt will be helping me and Lael on our birth defects research and Lael and I will also be traveling around Ghana to help Matt collect water samples. Who says research can’t be fun?

Excursion!

Happy Friday!

We have a three day weekend before hitting the books on Monday, so the fabulous trio (Matt, David, and I) are off to explore the Volta Region. We're heading to the capital, Ho, and will visit the Monkey Sanctuary, Wli Falls, and some other areas. I'd post pictures and such but internet now is slllooowww so you'll have to google it yourself. We'll update when we return!
Here's a link I found: www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/geography/volta_region.php
We're using our Lonely Planet Guide to get us there, around, and back.

Hasta luego...

The Many Meanings of a Taxi Horn

Preface: In lieu of a blinker, stoplight, or any other means of traffic control, the horn sounds. And the horn has many meanings. We are working hard to differentiate between them. Here are some we've discerned:

1. Honk: You want a taxi ride?
2. Hooonnkk: No room in dis taxi!
3. Honk Honk: I drivin through dis intersection you betta watch out.
4. Honk Honk: No I drivin through dis intersection and you betta watch out.
5. Honk Honk Hoonnkk: I bigga car so I drivin through dis intersection.
6. Honk: Ello pretty white lady.
7. Honk: Hi big Chinaman.
8. Honk: I see dat red light but I not stoppin.
9. Hoonnkkk: Get out of de road!
10. Honk Honk: I comin up behind you - you too slow!
11. Honk: I don't really know where you want to go but get in my taxi and I will take you somewhere.
12. Honk Honk: My taxi be lookin real nice on da outside but get inside and find da fish smell and stinky feet.

And finally...

13. Honk Honk Honk: We love Obama!

Our First Day

Ghana so far...from Lael...

Wow! Where do I start? We arrived here yesterday. We descended from the back of the plane (interesting experience #1) and were welcomed by an intense heat wave. Hot enough to fog up my camera lense (intersting experience #2). We gathered our luggage with the generous help of a few locals (all asking for tips) and meandered our way through customs. Having unpleasant experiences with customs in Brazil, I imagined Ghana would be nothing short of awful. The airport was crowded and four employees were investigating each bag. David began heading through the crowd and I noticed that noone said anything. He started to wave at a woman, asking her if she wanted to see his bags, but as she ignored him I told him to keep moving. He listened. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is How to Handle Customs in Ghana For Dummies.

After our success we were greeted by an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper with our names in faded blue marker. He showed us out to our ride, an Escalade manned with its own driver and our local Auntie, Ofie Kodjoe (Boris's cousin). Ofie is wonderful - a very sweet, very protective and loving woman. David and I are now running on about 5 hours of sleep combined (.5 for me, 4.5 for him) and it's 3:30am in Atlanta. She wants to know if we're hungry (duh, David's always hungry) and we want to know where we're sleeping (and how soon).

We arrive on campus and after some navigational (is that even a word?) difficulties we found our hostel. Well, it found us. Actually, it welcomed us with a green cloud of marijuana smoke. Ofie looked around, attempted to find the missing warden to at least look at our rooms, and after no success promptly told us we would find another place to stay. And marijuana isn't legal in Ghana.

Isaac, our Escalade driver, then took us to the main University campus (the previous hostel was on the Medical School campus) where other Emory students, Bilal and Maryam, are staying. We found their hostel - much nicer on the outside and only the faint smell of something burning - and them. Oh, American faces! It was refreshing. The only problem was that we couldn't find Matt. We had just missed him by an hour, and he was attempting to find us - sans cell phone and internet. And so began our journey, Where the Heck is Matt?

rest of story... from David

Back tracking a little, the funny thing is we left Atlanta with the plan of meeting up 5000 miles away only knowing the warden's name of some random hostel was Faustina; we had no address, no phone number and not even a general idea of where the hostel was located. So after a few leads from Bilal, we figured out Matt probably stayed on the main campus so we headed over that way. We arrived and asked the porter (assistant RA... they got onto Matt's case for wrong terminology Warden=RA, porter=desk assistant) if they had seen a tall white guy and surely enough, Matt checked-out an hour prior to our arrival and left to find us on the Medical Campus. Since Bilal and Maryam were here, we decided to stay put and setup camp here for the night. Bilal and Maryam had been here 2 weeks already, so they had a genernal feel for the city. They took us to a Lebanese Restaurant where the food was safe and there was air conditioning and internet. Lael and I looked like two zombies (we both took a nap, so we're working on a combined 7 hours of sleep at this point), but we were definitely happy for food (I'm always happy for food)! The restaurant was great, but we were not able to eat everything because the contents might not have been washed.

Interesting Food Precaution #1: Sachet of Water- Ghanaian tap water is not safe, so we have to drink and brush our teeth with bottled or sachet water. Sachet water looks like freezer bags with water, they are cheap and come in bulk!
Interesting Food Precaution #2: Vegetables and Fruit- We don't each anything that is uncooked or anything we have not peeled ourselves.

We head back (6:30 p.m. local) and get ready to hit the sack (we're both pretty much silent at this point... which rarely happens, especially for me). Taking a shower was definitely the best part of the day. After being on a plane for 20 hours and spending a whole day in the hot Ghanaian sun, the cold shower (no hot water here, no need) felt incredible. We've been told by multiple people that taking a shower upon arrival really brightens your day, I have no idea why, but it is so true!

I go to bed thankful for a roof over my head and thankful for food in my stomach; never in my life have I been worried about food and shelter, but today we got to briefly experience what most of the world experiences daily. I was thankful that we'd made it through the day, but uneasy not knowing what the heck we were doing and Where the Heck is Matt.

I was awaken this morning by a knock on my door, I hesitate to open at first thinking it's the Warden waking me up to pay for the room. After a few more knocks, I crawl out of bed, open the door and surely enough Matt Turner was there to greet me!! After a huge roommate embrace, I found out he got in late in the night after receiving our emails and after a very interesting journey at Korle Bu (I'll let him post his experience... many interesting events). After freshening up, Matt, Lael and I call our auntie Ofie and are told that her nephew and work intern will help us out for a few hours. We wait for an hour... then another... and finally we decide to explore the area on foot. We were told that the lifestyle here is very different, everyone is laid back and always late... not David Chen late... but big time late (interesting experience #3). Charles and Richard (nephew and intern) meet up with us on our way to one of the markets and help get us into a dorm on campus. So starting tomorrow night, we will be staying at a Uni (college=Uni) dorm called Pentagon here on campus. The rooms are about the size of a normal dorm room (maybe a bit smaller), but there is no air conditioning or fans. We're very excited about the living arrangement, the dorms are half the price of what we are staying in right now and Matt and I were able to get a room right across the hall from Lael on the ground floor (with weather this hot, walking up stairs is a real work out).

Charles and Richard drop us off at the Accra Mall in search of fans and food. There are 3 chains that are always right next to each other (Pizza Inn, Creamy Inn and Chicken Inn... you can figure it out). We eat at the chicken place and I am super excited! I knew I loved meat, but I didn't know how much I craved it (it's only been 36 hours since I've eaten meat). At our lunch we decided to go with a "Take One For the Team" policy; there are many things we would like to try, but we'd also like to not be next to a bathroom all summer. So we decided that if there is something that is probably safe, but not 100% certain, we will try one at a time. Lael and Matt tried a hot sauce today, so I will be next in line to take one for the team.

The Accra Mall is super posh and has nothing we can afford (Apple Store, Swatch Store, Puma Store... you get the point), so we get a taxi to take us to the closest thing they have to a Wal-Mart to buy a fan for our room. The ride to the store took us through part of town that was more authentic Ghana and less westernized. It was a real treat today to go on that taxi ride and see everything we saw. There are countless things that caught my eye, here are just a few: traditional clothing, street craftsmen and their amazing work, women carrying everything on their head, giant lizards, chickens running around (if my craving gets bad...there will be pictures), the beautiful Ghanaian landscape, the really crazy driving (honking=turn signal). We're now back at the hostel, happy to be together and about to go look for dinner.

Here are a few random things we didn't mention:
1) Internet- Lael's friend from church gave her an mobile internet card. So we have been able to get online by using this mobile card. We will be able to email, but that is about it; until we find faster sources, we will not be able to post pictures or talk on Skype. We are so fortunante to have ease of technology at our wanting in the U.S.; we really are a blessed country and even after a day, I am thankful for so much that we don't even realize is not a nessicity for life.
2) One of the most exciting things so far has been to see all the Ghanaians walking to church yesterday morning. As we drove around with Ofie and we saw people all over the streets wearing their Sunday best (Ghana style of course!) and carrying their Bibles. It was really cool to think that our friends at home, half the world away, were four hours away from doing the same thing, carrying the same Bible, worshipping the same God! So cool! Ofie is a member of an international church here that apparantly has great gospel-centered services, she also is a member of Covenant Life Church in Maryland, which happens to be the church pastored by 2 of my favorite authors (C.J. Mahaney and Joshua Harris)!! She will be taking Matt, Lael and I to church on Sundays. This was a huge answered prayer, so thank you for praying for me!

We would love to hear from you, so please send us emails!! Thanks again for everyone's support and prayers!

We're here!

Quick Update: We got here this morning, we are safe and we're trying to get settled.
More updates coming soon!

Expect the Unexpected

Upon waking up this morning I found out that one leg of my flight to Ghana was canceled. We had been prepared to expect the unexpected, so we took this well, went to the airport and rescheduled our flight to Saturday.
Right after we got our new plane tickets Jeremiah 29:11 popped in my head "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." It's comforting to know that canceled flights and unexpected circumstances don't occur just by chance. So our new trip dates are May 22- July 2.
It'll be a fun week of relaxing, preparing and learning to live without a schedule!

10 Interesting Facts About Ghana

Ten Interesting Facts About The Republic of Ghana (sent from Avery Mann):

1. In 1957, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan country to gain its independence. A constitutional democracy has been prevalent since April of 1992.

2. Comparatively, Ghana is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon.

3. The color of red in the flag represents the blood shed for independence, the yellow represents the country’s mineral wealth, the green stands for its forests and natural wealth, the black star is said to be the lodestar of African freedom.

4. The median age of the population of Ghana is about 20.5 years.

5. Approximately 50% of the population is urbanized, growing at a rate of 3.5% per year.

6. The technical term for the people of Ghana is Ghanaians.

7. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Ghana was known as the world's center for gold, ivory, and slave trade.

8. Some culture groups like the Asante have a matrilineal family organization where inheritance is passed down through the wife’s family rather than the husband’s, and the wife holds most of the chief responsibilities in the family.

9. As a result of its rich natural resources, Ghana has roughly twice the per capita output of the poorest countries in West Africa.

10. The per capita income of Ghana is $1,500, which ranks 199 (out of 261) compared to the other countries of the world.

Bonus: Also, Ghana is the world's leading exporter of Cocoa and their currency is called Cedis (1 cedi=.98 US dollars).